The present invention relates generally to collar-mounted electronic “bark limiter” or dog bark training devices, and more particularly to improvements therein which reduce the size, weight and power consumption thereof without reducing the open circuit stimulus voltage, allow improved, more reliable sensing of vibration due to barking of the dog, provide improved sensing of what constitutes valid barking, allow monitoring of the amount of valid barking that actually occurs, and provide low-power standby operation when the dog is not barking.
A variety of electronic dog training collars have been utilized for applying electrical shock and/or audible stimulus to a dog when it barks. In many situations it is highly desirable to prevent individual dogs or groups of dogs from barking excessively. For example, one dog's barking in a kennel is likely to stimulate other dogs to bark. This is undesirable with respect to the welfare of the dogs themselves and nearby people. Similar problems occur in neighborhoods in which there are dogs that are kept outside at night: if one dog starts barking others are likely to join in, causing a general disturbance.
The closest prior art is believed to include the present assignee's Bark Limiter product and commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,947,795 by G. Farkas entitled “Barking Control Device and Method”, issued Aug. 14, 1990 and incorporated herein by reference.
The Tri-Tronics collar-mounted Bark Limiter product has been successfully marketed by the present assignee for many years. It has been very successful in the market because it effectively controls unwanted barking of large and medium-sized dogs. Its large size has allowed use of large batteries to power the circuitry that enables the Bark Limiter product to produce a substantial level of stimulation, which has been a major reason for the product's success. However, the large size and weight of the assignee's Bark Limiter product have limited it to use on medium-sized and large-sized dogs. Competitive products that have been smaller in size and weight and therefore have been usable on a small or tiny dogs have been introduced to the market, but their small size evidently has necessitated a substantial reduction in the level of stimulation that such products can produce in response to the dog's barking.
Above mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,947,795 discloses a bark training device which allows a dog to control the level of electrical stimulus in response to its own barking behavior. This patent discloses circuitry in a collar-mounted electrical device that detects the onset of barking and initially produces only a single low level electrical stimulus pulse that gets the dog's attention, but does not initially produce a highly unpleasant level of stimulation. If the dog continues barking, the stimulation levels of the electrical shock pulses are increased at the onset of each barking episode in a stepwise fashion until the stimulus becomes so unpleasant that the dog stops barking for at least a predetermined time, e.g., one minute. After that minute elapses, the circuitry resets itself to its lowest initial stimulation level and remains inactive until barking begins again, and then repeats the process, beginning with the lowest level of stimulation and increasing the stimulus level if barking continues. In one embodiment, a certain duration, e.g., 30 seconds, of “watchdog barking” is permitted before the initial stimulus pulse is applied to get the dog's attention, after which continued “nuisance barking” results in gradual increasing in the intensity of the aversive stimulus up to a maximum level until the barking stops for at least one minute. (However, the assignee's above mentioned Bark Limiter product does not use the algorithm described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,947,795 for producing increased stimulation in response to increased levels of barking, and instead provides a fixed duration stimulation with detection of an initial onset of barking, and provides a half second duration of stimulation with two seconds of pause, which is easily implemented and has been proven to be very effective.)
A shortcoming of the prior art bark training products is that they detect nearly any sound the dog makes and automatically shock the dog in response to the detected sound. The stimulation intensity can be changed only by removing the stimulation electrodes and replacing them with different stimulation electrodes having different series resistances. The battery life of some prior bark limiters has been undesirably short because dog owners often find it convenient to leave the devices in a “power on” condition for long periods of time, even during times when the dog is not likely to be barking. Also, the larger, more effective prior art bark control devices are too large to use on a small or tiny dog.
Yet another shortcoming of prior bark control devices is that they have an on/off switch, and occasionally when the dog scratches with its hind foot, it unintentionally contacts the power switch and turns off the power of the bark control device. The dog may learn that by “scratching” in a certain way it can turn the bark control device off.
There also is an unmet need for a small, lightweight bark control device that provides long battery life using relatively inexpensive batteries.
There also is an unmet need for a small, lightweight, highly effective bark control device that is small and light enough to be readily worn by a small or tiny dog.
There also is an unmet need for way of substantially reducing the power consumption of a animal training device.
There also is an unmet need for an improved bark control device that avoids accidental stimulation of the dog in the event that the battery voltage is too low.